Sitting at a Hyperloop Transportation Technologies presentation here at Autonomy, it was fun listening to Chairman Bibop G. Gresta talk about transportation problems and how hyperloops can help solve them. He’s a funny guy. And he put the problems of current transportation methods into stark terms (using pictures and videos from the real world, of course).

However, the big surprise was that he announced for the first time during the presentation that construction had just begun on the first full-scale Hyperloop Transportation Technologies project — in Toulouse, France.

Bibop also highlighted the tremendous work and progress Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has been doing via the support of the Abu Dhabi government, the other region that has been particularly helpful getting Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) off the ground.

After his presentation, I spent some time one on one with Bibop to discuss why and how Toulouse ended up being the first to help HTT get a full-scale project off the ground (er … in the ground). We also talked about similarities between the leadership there and in Abu Dhabi (UAE), where the government has enabled much of HTT’s quick progress. And we talked about challenges HTT faced in California, as well as discussions/developments underway in India.

I think there’s a lot of insightful commentary — exciting reflections on HTT’s progress to date — in these videos. But you can judge for yourself! Check all of that out in the two exclusive CleanTechnica videos below!

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Let us know if you have any extra questions for Mr. Bibop Gresta. Perhaps we’ll do a follow-up interview via text or in Abu Dhabi in a few months.

Update: Apologies, but Mr. Bibop Gresta’s 25 minute presentation had to be removed due to some sensitive material. It will soon be added back to the article after a new, 21 minute version is published. Enjoy the video interview in the meantime!

Update #2: The video presentation is added again, but I had to publish it on YouTube at a lower resolution than normal since WiFi in the conference venue, the hotel, and now our Tesla Shuttle has been too weak. I will publish a higher-resolution version again once I have really good WiFi.

Update #3: A high-resolution video of the 21 minute presentation has been uploaded and added to this article in place of the lower-res version.